Generally, a vacuum cleaner is a device that suctions dust and foreign matter together with air using a vacuum motor mounted in a cleaner body and then filters the dust and the foreign matter in the cleaner body.
A vacuum cleaner having the aforementioned function may be mainly classified as a canister type vacuum cleaner in which a suction port, i.e. a suction nozzle, is connected to a cleaner body via a connection pipe or an upright type vacuum cleaner in which a suction nozzle is integrated with a cleaner body.
Of the above two vacuum cleaners, the canister type vacuum cleaner includes a cleaner body having a vacuum motor to generate suction force mounted therein, a suction nozzle to suction dust and foreign matter from a surface to be cleaned using the suction force generated from the cleaner body, and an extension pipe and a connection pipe to connect the suction nozzle to the cleaner body.
That is, when the vacuum motor is driven by power supplied to the cleaner body of the vacuum cleaner, suction force is generated by the vacuum motor, and air containing dust and foreign matter from a surface to be cleaned is suctioned into the suction nozzle by the suction force.
The suction nozzle includes a cleaning member, such as a brush, contacting the surface to be cleaned to clean the surface to be cleaned.
Also, moving wheels are provided at the suction nozzle to smoothly move the suction nozzle on the surface to be cleaned. The moving wheels support the suction nozzle such that the bottom of the suction nozzle is spaced apart from the surface to be cleaned.
The air containing dust and foreign matter is introduced into the cleaner body of the vacuum cleaner via the extension pipe and the connection pipe. Dust and foreign matter are separated from the air containing dust and foreign matter introduced into the cleaner body of the vacuum cleaner by a dust separation device mounted at the cleaner body of the vacuum cleaner.
The separated dust and foreign matter are collected in the cleaner body of the vacuum cleaner, and the air, from which the dust and foreign matter have been separated, is discharged from the cleaner body of the vacuum cleaner.
Meanwhile, representative examples of a surface to be cleaned, on which cleaning is performed by the vacuum cleaner, may include a hard floor and a carpet. The hard floor is a smooth surface made of stone, wood, or oilpaper.
In a case in which the vacuum cleaner performs cleaning on such a surface to be cleaned, most dust and foreign matter on the surface to be cleaned are suctioned into the cleaner body of the vacuum cleaner by suction force generated by the vacuum motor. However, dust and foreign matter sticking to the surface to be cleaned or heavy dust and foreign matter are not suctioned into the cleaner body of the vacuum cleaner by suction force generated by the vacuum motor.
In order to solve the above problem, therefore, there has been developed a suction nozzle to which a cleaning member, such as a brush, is coupled to perform cleaning while contacting a surface to be cleaned.
However, the cleaning member is fixed to the suction nozzle with the result that the distance between the bottom of the cleaning member and the surface to be cleaned is uniform. For this reason, it is not easy to uniformly maintain suction force of the vacuum cleaner depending upon kind of a surface to be cleaned, such as a hard floor or a carpet, and therefore, it is not possible to effectively suction dust and foreign matter.
Also, the position of the cleaning member coupled to the suction nozzle is changed simply by user manipulation.